


I hope this finds you well

by cakewizard



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:37:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1696724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakewizard/pseuds/cakewizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’ll write you, Bucky promises in the morning, leaving behind warm sheets draped over Steve and a hot cup of strong coffee on the bedside table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I hope this finds you well

I’ll write you, Bucky promises in the morning, leaving behind warm sheets draped over Steve and a hot cup of strong coffee on the bedside table.

Steve doesn’t tell him he might not be around, that something had gone right the last time he tried to enlist and that maybe  _maybe_  he’s got a chance of joining him overseas.

Bucky writes letters about the weather, about how cold and awful it is and how everyone he meets looks like a shadow, moving against the light . He writes about the girls he met in a dingy pub in the outskirts of London, how they let the men hold them tight and run their hands up their skirts in exchange for a decent meal. Bucky writes and tells him not to come, that he’s glad Steve wasn’t drafted. He tells him he misses their apartment, their two single beds put together to form a queen where they could lie together in the cold nights, he says he even misses their pre-historic radio that used to belong to Steve’s mom. Bucky writes and says he would give the world to take Steve to the burger joint on the corner of their street again and that after this is all over he will.

Bucky writes about the loneliness and the harshness of it all, hoping Steve is safe at home.

 . 

Steve’s uniform is tighter around the shoulders, colors bright and glaring. He was surprised to see that Europe had more shades of grey and black than he had pictured.

They got up on the stage to perform for yet another group of disinterested soldiers and he wondered if maybe he’d see Bucky in the crowd this time. Steve wondered if Bucky would recognize him now, after the serum and covered with stripes and stars.

In one of the many scenarios he made up in his mind, Bucky finds him backstage, gives him a hard clap on the back, smiles at him. There is wonder and surprise in Bucky’s eyes and Steve can feel the phantom coarse touch of Bucky’s uniform under Steve’s fingertips as he imagines himself closing his hand around Bucky’s bicep. He feels the weight of Bucky’s warm breath on his face, the pressure on the soft skin of Bucky’s neck under his lips. In his fantasies Bucky always lets him, opens up to him and breathes out his name.

 .

 His blood runs cold when he finds Bucky straped to a table surronded by machines. Was it too late, he asks himself in despair as he unbuckles him from the cot, was he too late to save him, to catch him before he slips away between his fingers again.

"Who is there?" Bucky asks, and for a moment Steve has a horrible thought that the Germans had scrambled with Bucky's mind until there was nothing left. But then Bucky says Steve's name and his eyes finally focus on him and he smiles, even if it takes him a moment to believe Steve is wearing a different shape now, with a new set of muscles and a stronger jaw.

Bucky's skin feels cold and clammy and Steve knows that if he had waited a little longer there was a very real possibility that Bucky could've died. It's a thought that sets a heavy weight on the pit of his stomach as he helps Bucky out of the factory, half carrying him when his legs threaten to give in. 

He is still a little shaken and pale when they reach the camp. Peggy takes Steve aside to suggest that the Sergeant would benefit from a hot meal and a few hours of sleep, no point in dragging him to the medical tent when he could barely stand. Steve nods. Neither of them say it, not right now, but Steve needed to rest just as well, and there was no way he would be able to get any if Bucky was out of his sight.

He walked over to where Bucky was unsuccessfully trying to light a cigarette.

"Hey," Steve says when he gets closer. "Didn't you quit smoking a while back?"

Bucky looks up and gives him a tight smile. "You gonna tell my mom?" Bucky's fingers are shaking so much he can't even strike a match. Steve takes them from him and lights one.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" he asks, offering the small flame to Bucky.

Bucky shakes his head. He puffs the smoke away from Steve like he used to when they were in Brooklyn and the smallest hint of smoke would have had Steve coughing up his lungs. He realizes what he's doing and chuckles, eying Steve properly for the first time.

"How about  _you_  tell me what happened?" he asks instead, good-humoredly. "Are people already mistaking you for Errol Flynn?"

Steve laughs and puts a warm hand on Bucky's shoulder to steer him towards the private tent he was given to stay during the presentations. And if Steve's hand feels a little too heavy and his grip is a little too tight, neither of them mentions it.  

.

Bucky asks over a meal if he got his letters. His shoulders are tense with anxious anticipation. Steve shakes his head; he was already gone by the time Bucky got to Europe.

Oh, Bucky says like it means nothing.

.

He used to think about it before, about running his fingers through Bucky’s short hair, sucking bruises on his neck and cupping him through his boxers under their sheets and blankets during their cold cold nights in Brooklyn.

Now he thinks he could reach out his hand and bring Bucky to his arms, away from the nightmares that make him squirm and mumble rank, service number and name in the night.

He won’t, though. Steve wouldn’t risk it. So he watches over him, and holds his breath until Bucky drifts to calmer dreams.

.

They explode a German tank and the debris fall all around them. The men cheer in excitement, howling to the skies in glee. Steve laughs with them.

He looks around and doesn’t see Bucky on his sniper position nor standing with the others. He spots him a couple of yards away, where the trees grow closer together and the woods are thicker. Steve jogs to him and is about to ask what is he doing when he sees it. It’s a small animal, maybe a rabbit or a skunk. It was hit by some the falling debris from their explosion and it’s hurt. Badly so, judging by the thick red blood oozing out from the wound.

Steve looks at Bucky staring at the animal and he realizes Bucky has changed. There are edges that weren’t there before, like some part of him had been torn out by a greater power.

Bucky doesn’t use his revolver because ammunition is hard to come by and there’s no reason to waste it. He picks up a stone instead and lets gravity bring it down the small creature. It dies with a nauseating splash.

"You ever find me like that, Steve," he says, but doesn’t finish. Steve knows.

.

He’s more careful with Bucky after that. No one really knows for sure what happened at Zola’s workshop, and Bucky talks very little of his time there. But something must have happened, and Steve will hold onto the shreds of what was left of his best friend and sew him back together even if it takes his whole goddamned life.

He makes sure Bucky eats right and is never underdressed for the European winter. He watches over him and keeps him close by his side.

"I’m turning into you," Bucky chuckles humorlessly one day. His blue eyes are kind and gentle as he looks at Steve. Bucky lays his hand on Steve’s shoulder and it is affectionate and warm, a tiny pressure of fingertips before he goes off to find the bar.

In his fantasies, he presses Bucky up against the wooden walls of the pub, he moves slowly and gently as he presses against him, holds his legs up around his hips and savors his kiss.

Steve watches Bucky’s back as he goes away, shakes his head. 

.

 Bucky falls.

Steve closes his eyes and sees Bucky's terrified eyes as he slips away.

In his fantasies, he catches him. He pulls him back to the train and into the safety of his arms.

.

It doesn’t hurt so much, Steve tells himself as he nose-dives into the cold, dying that is.

.

Some seventy years later Steve wakes up. The world is changed, but he is still a twenty something year-old from the past century, and reality is harsh and cruel. No flying cars and no universal peace like Stark predicted. Everything is the same as usual only bigger, brighter, scarier.

People know his name and his story and all of what he did. There are books written about him, movies, songs, museums.

He finds his mother’s radio in one of them, his landlady’s cookbook Bucky borrowed and never returned, an old pad of sketches.

He finds Bucky’s old letters too. I’ll write he had said, did you get them he had asked. There’s a whole bunch of them and Steve has never read a single one.

They go on about whatever Bucky had in mind at the moment, the weather, the sad British girls, food. But some are more personal, referencing things only Steve knew. Steve asks for access to the originals but is denied. The paper is too old, too fragile. They give him copies instead, printed versions of what once was Bucky’s sharp block letters. Steve reads them all, devours them.

In his fantasies, Bucky takes him to the burger joint on the corner of their street, orders a strawberry milkshake for himself and a chocolate one for Steve. His eyes are like clear blue skies as his fingertips trace small circles inside Steve’s wrist.

.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to the lovely [sullacat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sullacat/) for putting up with my whining and for being an amazing beta!


End file.
